Technology

The Hinds County School District Technology Department is committed to providing our students, teachers and staff with the resources required to support all academic and curriculum endeavors. We provide the technology tools, training and support for staff and teachers to help them reach our important goals of providing an environment that will help us prepare our students for the rest of their lives.

We are responsible for the hardware and software applications that support our curriculum and administrative tasks. These applications include dozens of online curriculum and testing applications and also include Lightspeed Internet Filtering, Mobile Device Management, and other Student Information Systems applications provided by the State of Mississippi Department of Education.

Our team is responsible for the procurement, implementation and support of approximately 3,000 hosts including computers, iPads, Peripherals, SmartBoards and other devices required by our students, teachers and staff, in addition to dozens of applications and online resources. Our goal is to provide support technologies that will allow our students, teachers and staff to efficiently and effectively learn technology skills, enhance digital literacy, and higher-order thinking.

Procedures and Policies

Technology and Support Services

  • District-wide Network Access and Security Services

  • Hardware and Desktop Support

  • Email and Collaboration Applications

  • District Website, Facebook, Twitter and our own Mobile App

  • Lightspeed Internet Filtering

  • Mobile Device Management including BYOD

  • Mississippi Department of Education Student Data and Curriculum Applications

  • Online Curriculum and other Educational Applications

Technology Standards And Policies

Sam Spectra Teacher Instructions

Email Settings for Your Phone

Tech Help Desk

Our Tech Help Desk Support System is available to anyone with a HCSD issued device. If you have a problem with login, passwords, internet access issues or other application issues, call anyone in the Technology Department for help.

If you are a non-district employee and have a HCSD technology issue that needs to be resolved please include the following information when you call/email:

  1. Your full name

  2. Your non-district location

  3. Your contact information (phone or email)

  4. Basic overview of the issue

  5. Chromebook or MacBook serial number

Technical Upgrades and Future District Plans

Communication
Over the last couple years, we have been able to upgrade all building-to-building communications to fiber-optic transmission lines as well as re-cable all schools to take advantage of those high-speed connections. We have upgraded all of the switches and routers throughout the district allowing faster access to internal district applications as well as internet access.

Wireless Access
We have increased the amount of wireless access points throughout the district with the intention of creating a "wireless district" that will enable students, teachers and staff to take advantage of devices that will enhance their capabilities. Kennedy Early Childhood Center and Summit Elementary School are wireless campus wide. In addition, we have implemented a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) environment to allow those with wireless devices access to the internet safely and securely using our district-wide network authentication services.

Desktop Environments
We are now implementing a thin client, virtual environment in some of our computer labs which saves on hardware replacement costs as well as helps with desktop administration. Once implemented, we are able to phase out older technologies and redistribute newer workstations from the labs to teachers and administrators, once again, saving hardware replacement costs.

Teacher and Staff Training
We offer training individual and small group sessions for teachers and staff covering areas such as district login requirements, use of our email system, Microsoft Office applications, and other areas which will allow our teachers and staff to become more efficient and take advantage of applications and resources.

District Support Applications
We provide applications that enable district-wide curriculum support for students and teachers as well as applications that protect all district users and assure that we adhere to the district's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and other federal, state or approved vendor requirements.

Lightspeed Systems and Barracuda enable us to provide safe and secure internet access to all district users. This filtering system ensures that dangerous and unwanted categories of websites are not accessible on our network while providing safe access to those websites that support educational and curriculum resources. In addition, we are able to filter requests from within our network that do not adhere to our overall educational and curriculum objectives. Lightspeed also affords us the ability to manage wireless devices so that students and teachers can access only those websites and applications that support those objectives.

Google Classroom is a student, teacher and parent curriculum and collaboration support environment similar to other social media forums. It allows students, teachers and parents to communicate and share curriculum studies such as libraries, homework assignments, messaging and other functions all within a single environment. This environment allows students and teachers to collect, store and share information from a variety of sources. Students can save their assignments, research materials and other information in an environment that is accessible by internet anywhere allowing students and teachers the ability to communicate and collaborate.